Coal Lobbying Group Airs New Ad Mocking Occupy Wall Street

The coal lobby just kicked off a $40 million campaign to manipulate the election cycle. In 2008, the industry planted questions in town hall events to coerce candidates like John McCain, Mitt Romney, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama to support coal-friendly policies. This year, the effort seems quite similar — but the first ad of the campaign actually mocks Occupy Wall Street.

During the ad, an image of Occupy protesters flashes across the screen as the narrator states: “It’s time we focus on reality instead of rhetoric.” View a screenshot below:

The coal lobby thinks “reality” is a world dependent on their dangerous product. Coal-fired power plants kill at least 13,000 people a year by spewing over 386,000 tons of pollutants, including mercury, into the air. Coal is also the most significant driver of carbon emissions, making the industry responsible for global warming that will cause more extreme weather, droughts, famine, crop failures, mass extinction of various species, as well as flooding. Coal is hardly even a source of middle class jobs given efforts by major coal companies to bust their respective unions.

And just as coal pollutes the air and water, the coal lobby pollutes our political system with tens of millions of dollars spent on influencing legislators, funding front groups, and broadcasting ridiculous propaganda.

ACCCE, the lobbying group behind the campaign, is funded by coal-dependent utility companies like American Electric Power, and major coal companies like Arch Coal, Alpha Natural Resources, Consol Energy, and Peabody. GE Energy, a subsidiary of GE, also funds ACCCE.

There is no such thing as “clean coal”. Period, end of story!
The test is simple: Force the proponents to define “clean” and prepare to laugh your belly out.

OaktownBman

If coal has now been rebranded “clean coal” why can’t they meet the new air pollution standards?
Maybe it’s not so clean after all?

Nick

Its clean compared to not running the platinum scrubbers. Those scrubbers act as catalytic converters to reduce emission levels. So like a car that is not as dirty as it was twenty years ago, the same goes for the coal refineries. Also note that we have to many people living too long anyways so we lose a few to coal plants, fine by me. Also a future note, the sun is going to go red giant eventually and kill everything on earth anyways so it doesn’t really matter in the long run.

Clean coal is an OXYMORON! Look up the word. There is no such thing as CLEAN COAL!

Mizt1

As I noted in a comment elsewhere, “clean coal” is the mother of all oxymorons. There simply is no such thing. Now, there may be mining and energy production methods that are marginally less polluting than others but that in no way equates to the idea that any way of producing and burning coal can be considered “clean”. To believe otherwise is sheer fantasy.

America has a lot of coal and natural gas that are just begging for exploitation as energy sources. Some envision natural gas as a bridge to a more distant future where some other safer energy source will be used. Also, South Africa was once cut off from the world’s oil supplies because of apartheid and learned how to change coal into gas. It kept them running. Motley Fool used to push coal-to-oil technology like that done by SASOL as the future of fuel. I didn’t see that one take off…yet.

Perhaps the “clean coal” would more honestly be called “cleaner coal.” That doesn’t mean it can’t be improved. Catalytic converters placed on cars improved the old situations of dense smog. It would be wonderful to see vehicles that run on air, as one Korean inventor boasted he had done. Of course, it was a hoax.

The point is, every source of energy we have seems to come with a dark side. And one of the mistakes of the past was that those going into college chose Wall Street over science or research. There was gold in them thar hills but it turned out to be fool’s gold. Unfortunately, the darker angels of humanity seem to rule, and real progress always takes a hit by our longing to be Neanderthals.

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